CRUSHER Magazine: Feature: Lacuna Coil

SK: Tell me who are your influences as a singer and a band.

CS: I don’t know, actually. I used to like Madonna when I was a kid, but I didn’t like her singing style. I liked her more as a performer--very powerful woman. But I don’t have any influences as a female vocalist. I like black soul and rhythm and blues vocalists because I like the power in their voice, the way they show feelings. I like them better than super technical singers like Mariah Carey, even though she can reach really high notes.

SK: What about as a band?

CS: When we started, we were influenced by old Paradise Lost and Type O Negative. We were more into the European gothic scene. Then we started to be open to any type of music from rock to classical. We like Meshuggah. We like classical music. We have no problems at all mixing up everything. So we don’t really have influences.

SK: Who writes music?

		LACUNA COIL Starland Ballroom, Sayerville, NJ May 11, 2004 by Stella Kim/photos from official website of band LINKS: lacunacoil.it
		I saw Lacuna Coil for the first time at the New England Metal and Hardcore Fest last year. I’d heard their name before, but all I knew about them was that they were from Italy and that they had two singers, a male and a female. So I expected them to be a typical European metal band with a male and a female singer. Excuse my ignorance, you know, with the beauty and the beast contrast. However, their performance not only shattered my expectations but also blew me away at the same time. When I had another chance to see the band perform and interview the band, I was delighted to take the opportunity.
I arrived at Starland Ballroom a few hours prior to the show. I have to urge all New Jersey and New York residents to visit and see a show at this awesome venue, which opened last year, before I go on with the interview. You can see the stage well from anywhere in the venue, the atmosphere is cool and laid back, and you can smoke inside. (They have a ton of cool shows coming up, so pay a visit if you haven’t yet.) I arrived at the venue and spotted Cristina Scabbia, the lead singer of the band--the victim of the day. We sat down in the bus lounge and conducted the interview while other members of the band looked on, talking amongst themselves in Italian.
STELLA KIM: What are you guys currently up to? Tell me about the latest album, et cetera. CRISTINA SCABBIA: The latest album is called Comalies, which was released in 2002. We’re working on a new album, which will come out in 2005. It’ll be more positive and dynamic compared to the other albums. You can still find the usual Lacuna Coil style, which is a mixture between gothic rock and metal with a modern touch and a melancholic atmosphere put together with some aggressive stuff. But it’s different from the others because it’s simpler in a sense that we learned how to cut out bullshit in every song, meaning we learned to be selective. We learned to be thinking, like let’s do a very good song, work for it, and concentrate on it without putting too much stuff on it.
SK: How’s the tour going with P.O.D and Blindside? CS: It’s going pretty good. It’s kind of a vacation for us because we only play 30-35 minutes every night. It’s great, the bands are amazing. P.O.D are extremely nice guys, so we have a lot of fun together. We actually had a barbecue together a few days ago. SK: Do you like them musically? CS: I don’t know them very well. I only know most popular songs. I’m not a huge fan, but I like them. They have a lot of good material. SK: What was your best touring memory? CS: I think with Type O Negative, because we had so much fun together. Actually Kenny is coming to see us tonight. Johnny was supposed to come too, but he had something else to do. We’re in a very good relationship. We toured a lot with them so we really became like a family. SK: What headlining band treated you the best? CS: We never had problems with any other bands, but we had the best connection with Type O Negative. They’re from Brooklyn. There are many Italian people there, and we’re from Italy so we have the same attitude. We really want to be together all the time and have fun together. But there’s not a single band that treated us badly. SK: That throws my next question out. I was going to ask you what headlining band treated you the worst. So where does the name Lacuna Coil come from? CS: It’s the name we created, actually. The old name of the band was Ethereal when we did the first promo tape back in ‘96. We didn’t really like the name, and there were other bands with the word ‘ethereal’ included. So we decided to create something completely new and original mixing two words together. One of the words is actually Italian, which is Lacuna. It means there’s something missing. And coil means spiral. Like empty spiral. So there’s no real meaning, but it’s not a cliché.
	SK: Tell me who are your influences as a singer and a band. CS: I don’t know, actually. I used to like Madonna when I was a kid, but I didn’t like her singing style. I liked her more as a performer--very powerful woman. But I don’t have any influences as a female vocalist. I like black soul and rhythm and blues vocalists because I like the power in their voice, the way they show feelings. I like them better than super technical singers like Mariah Carey, even though she can reach really high notes. SK: What about as a band? CS: When we started, we were influenced by old Paradise Lost and Type O Negative. We were more into the European gothic scene. Then we started to be open to any type of music from rock to classical. We like Meshuggah. We like classical music. We have no problems at all mixing up everything. So we don’t really have influences. SK: Who writes music?
CS: Marko, the bass player, is the main composer of music. Then we meet up altogether with arrangements and everything. Andrea and I are responsible for vocal lines and lyrics. I wrote most (of the) lyrics in Comalies with help of Andrea. We tried to use our voices like instruments. SK: Lacuna Coil is radically different from other internationally known Italian metal bands such as Rhapsody. Do you feel that you’ve made a difference in metal genre in Italy? CS: We’re more of an international band. When epic metal was trendy, a lot of new bands were doing the same thing as Rhapsody and Labyrinth, but we were doing something completely different. That’s why we became another icon in the metal scene in Italy. We’re one of very few bands who made it outside of Italy. American market is tough for Italian bands. SK: Do you have any followers? Bands who copy your style? CS: Now it’s interesting for us to see when new bands are compared to us in magazine reviews and such. It’s an honor for us. SK: Some people have said that Evanescence ripped you off. What do you think? CS: I think the only thing we have in common is that both bands have a female vocalist. It’s not a competition at all. We’re not interested in that. There’s no fight between two bands. I think they’re different from us because they’re definitely more pop and mainstream. We’re more rock and metal, more underground. But it really pisses me off when people say we copied them because they didn’t know us before. I don’t want to change the style I had for more than ten years because of them. When people see bands with female vocalists, they immediately compare them to each other. We were compared to the Gathering in the beginning, even though we were completely different. SK: So there are two vocalists in the band. How did it come about? Tell me a bit of band history. CS: Andrea was the only member from the original band before we signed with Century Media. All other members came after him. So when they were producing a promo tape to send around, they asked me to do some choruses. Then I went in and sang for them, and they really liked the result so they asked me to stay in the band. We like that we’ve been able to explore both ends of spectrum. We can have growling from Andrea and clear vocal from me. SK: I noticed that the band hasn’t gone through a lineup change in quite a few years. What keeps the band tight? CS: I think the friendship is the key. We’ve had problems in the beginning. We were kind of friends but there was too much ego. We didn’t want to appear besides others, we wanted all the attention. That was the problem. Now we don’t have that kind of problem because everybody’s working for the same goal. We’re working in harmony. Everybody likes the music. I think respect for other people is the secret. And if you have problems, we have to talk and solve the problems. Don’t keep the problems for yourself and explode at the end. SK: People say music business is a tough business for women. Have you had any difficulties at all? CS: Never had problems. I like to be on the road, I like to explore different cultures, meet different people, and perform live. I’m around the second family from me. Marko is my boyfriend. It’s really comfortable. We have proper bunks, can shower everyday, it’s fun. It’s not always easy but if you really like the music, you can handle it without problems. SK: How’s your relationship with Century Media? CS: We actually re-signed the deal. Now we’re one of their priorities so they’re treating us very good. Lots of promotion. They’re an independent label so we don’t have a huge budget but they’re working hard for us. We’ve had some major labels interested in us, but we thought it was better to stay with Century Media because it’s like a family for us. SK: How long have you guys been with Century Media? CS: We signed in 1997. SK: How important is visual image to this band? CS: It’s absolutely important. I don’t think you can separate visual image from musical part, especially in live shows. Even if you don’t have special effects or lights, you really have to express yourself. People want to hear good music but they want to see you moving too. They want to see a good show. They don’t want to see a band standing there. They want to see energy. SK: Any future plans? CS: We’re going to finish the P.O.D tour, then two to three weeks of vacation, then straight to Ozzfest. And after Ozzfest, back to Milan and record. SK: Any final words? CS: I would like to ask readers to pay attention to the television because they’ll see our new video for “Swamped” soon. It’s the first song from Comalies. It’s a really cool video. We filmed in Sweden with the director of our previous video again.

Cristina turned out to be a very articulate and energetic interviewee. I was a bit disappointed that their set was going to be that short, but the performance was as exciting and energetic as ever, despite the short length of the performance. They opened the set with “Swamped,” the new single from Comalies and ended with “Daylight Dancer.” If you haven’t seen them and plan to attend Ozzfest this summer as any metal fan should (I mean, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Slayer together, come on!) I suggest that you catch Lacuna Coil playing on the second stage. I feel that this band will appeal to a lot of people, from an Evanescence fan to a hardcore metalhead. But there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to see it for yourself.